Not a Formula but a Relationship

Phillip Walters www.backyardbelievers.com

For some time now I have wanted to tackle a practice which is such a sacred cow that to oppose it makes me feel a little like Martin Luther (just a tiny little) standing in front of the church door with a hammer in his hand.

It’s the modern practice of tithing, a practice that, while it has little or no foundation in the New Testament, stands in some churches almost alongside belief in the Trinity or the Virgin Birth. However it is my belief that it is a sacred cow that is made of much the same material as the calf that Aaron built and needs to go.

It is untouchable because much of modern church practice relies on it; and it has to go because, just as Aaron’s calf was a way of worship without relationship, tithing has become for many a similar substitute for being led by the Holy Spirit.

MY JOURNEY

Before getting into dismantling your confidence in the tithe as a thoroughly New Testament practice, let me first give you some of my own background.

Tithing for me started not long after learning to sing ‘Hear the pennies dropping …’ a ditty that I sang fervently every week in Sunday School as I struggled to untie the penny that mum had tied up in the corner of my handkerchief. My parents, though not Christians, sent me and my brothers off to the local Salvos and thus my Christian walk began. Thank God for the Salvos!

And, being the good evangelical mob that they were, my youth was spent imbibing everything that was necessary to being a good Christian soldier, including tithing which probably started with my first pay packet (to the dismay of my father). I believed in it and finished up practising and preaching it through most of my adult Christian life, good times and hard times, up until four years ago.

And I preached it well – and not just because my income depended upon it. I preached it from a grace aspect and with no compulsion – well, unless you call the Malachi threat of a curse ‘compulsion’ … but I’ll cover that later.

When the recent teaching about the need to tithe to the one who represents Christ to you came along I was excited and embraced that as well. We separated tithes and offerings, with tithes going for the Ministry, the equivalent of the priesthood (?), and the offering going to pay for the new Worship Centre, the equivalent of the temple (?).

Did those equivalents unsettle anyone? No? Well let’s move on.

So what happened four years ago? I think what happened was I began to be uncomfortable with the way some were interpreting the importance of the tithe and what seemed like a dread of the consequences of not having the tithe into the ‘storehouse’ on time. A week late, it seemed, could seriously dry up the flow of God’s provision and a cheque that the office girl had forgotten to post become a dam to God’s supply, even to those who walked in a lifestyle of extraordinary generosity.

So the questions started. Was God as legalistic as this? Did this at all reflect his character? Where in the New Testament do we find such fastidiousness in giving – except among the Pharisees? What about the ‘grace’ of giving? It was these questions and more that led me to take another look at the tithe, and especially as it related to New Testament practice.

And my conclusion? There is no basis in the New Testament for the modern practice of tithing. Rather the New Covenant writers present a new way of giving, no longer based on fixed percentages but based on relationship and listening. Not based on set formulas but on the unpredictable leadings of the Spirit.  Read on.

JESUS AND THE TITHE

Have you ever noticed that the only time Jesus refers to tithing is in the context of a rebuke to those who were tithing? Come with me and take a look. The first passage is in Matthew 23:23 (also quoted in Luke 11:42)

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.

Although this passage is often used as an example of Jesus teaching tithing – ‘this you should have practiced without neglecting the former’ – in closer look it is in fact nothing of the kind.

To start with, the ‘former’ that he is referring to is the tithing of their mint, dill and cumin. Even the most ardent evangelical tither would, I think, feel that this was not Jesus’ intent for his followers, and certainly I know of no one that obeys this ‘command’.

No, Jesus was not talking to his followers but to the Pharisees, a group of legalists who epitomised the religious system of his day, a system that was diametrically opposed to the way that was to come, the way of the Spirit, centring instead on the maintenance of mindless ritual and self-centred deeds as a means of salvation. Their attitude was epitomised by the Pharisee noted in Jesus’ second reference to tithing, Luke 18:11-13.

‘The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

I believe that what Jesus was in fact saying to them was this. If you want to live by the law then you are right; you do have to be fastidious about it and tithe your mint, your dill and your cumin. As Paul would later remind the Galatians, those who seek righteousness by the law are ‘obligated to obey the whole law’ (Galatians 5:3).

But Jesus was quick to point out that that particular law was not basically about giving a tenth of your wealth. It was about using it to promote justice, mercy and faithfulness. And by slavishly obeying the letter of the law you have missed God’s heart, and in so doing have failed in your objective, righteousness by the law.

THE FAILURE OF THE LAW

The truth is that the laws of God were good; however there was always an element of the law that could only be perceived and grasped by the Spirit. Jesus revealed that when he exposed people’s attitude to murder and adultery.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not murder… But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment … You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery. But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. (Matt 5:21, 27)

The unspiritual mind cannot grasp the deeper things of the Spirit, cannot go below the surface and take hold of the greater sweep of God’s heart contained in the written code. Unspiritual man can be quite comfortable, however, with the surface details of the written decree. That’s because it’s a lot easier, and a lot less costly, than listening to the Spirit. But it seems that without the Holy Spirit the human heart, at its best, simply settles for those minimal aspects of the law of God that make a man look good, usually with the least amount of sacrifice or cost.

And the laws pertaining to tithing suffered from this as much as any other law, e.g. the laws pertaining to murder and adultery. This was the failure of the law as a means to produce righteousness and the reason that God sent his Spirit, to take us beyond the letter and into his heart.

And it’s the reason why the early church and its leaders left tithing behind and stepped up to another level.

PETER, PAUL AND JOHN – AND NO TITHE

Apart from a reference in the letter to the Hebrews (which I’ll come to) there is no reference to tithing in the rest of the New Testament. Nothing in Acts or any of the pastoral or doctrinal letters attributed to Peter, Paul, John or the other named writers.

Rather, when we step into Acts we find a pattern and level of giving which has nothing to do with set percentages or ‘planned giving’ programs but everything to do with responding to the Holy Spirit as he made needs known to a listening people.

The early Christians discovered that the Spirit was like the wind, invasive and unpredictable. He invaded their comfortable, earthly-secure lifestyles with a vision of heaven that changed their attitudes to material possessions and this world’s priorities. He released their heart from the grasping, accumulating mind-set that they’d inherited from Adam and set them free to be like Jesus, extravagant and fearless in their giving.

He also rattled their dependence on the need for things to be patterned and predictable. He wanted them to become listeners rather than have them settle into rote patterns of behaviour. The tithe may have been necessary for a people whose hearts were hard, the kind of immature church-goers that Malachi was wrestling with at the close of the Old Testament, but it was not the way of the Spirit.

And nor was it the way of the champion of the Spirit, the apostle Paul.

PAUL AND A BETTER WAY

There can hardly have been a church in New Testament times that was not influenced by Paul, a man sovereignly appointed by God to lay a bedrock of teaching that would become a foundation of church life and practice for generations to come. The sweep of subjects covered in his letters to the new churches is breathtaking.

Here is a man who knows the Old Testament scriptures well and has no trouble drawing on them to undergird his teaching on a huge range of subjects, from individual conduct to church life to the life to come. And he is not neglectful of the need to set in place some sound principles on the subject of giving, devoting two whole chapters to it in 2 Corinthians alone.

And yet, given an abundance of Old Testament passages on tithing to draw from, he uses none. Not a word, not a syllable. Tithing, it seems, is just not an important part of the equation for Paul when it comes to giving. It is certainly not the kind of key principle that is commonly taught today.

Paul’s teaching on giving (which I’ll cover in more detail later) is basically this.

^‘Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.’ (2Corinthians 9:7-8)

There is a grace of giving (2 Cor 8:7) and a level of provision (2 Cor 9:11) that we are meant to step into – and indeed excel in – and all that is required is the nurturing of an attitude of joyful abandon and extravagant generosity in relation to material things. There is nothing there about a tithe needing to be in place first of all or a distinction made between tithing and giving.

For Paul ‘deciding in your heart’ had to do with walking in constant fellowship with Jesus, imbibing His values and priorities, and listening to His Spirit. This involves a lot more than putting a rote ten percent in the bag each week and leaving it to ‘the church’ to decide where the Spirit wants it used. And then going home feeling good because you are a faithful tither.

Granted that many tithing believers reading this do not have such a lazy attitude, regularly give way above the tithe and are walking in abundant provision and the grace of giving. I’d like to suggest, however, that this grace has nothing to do with tithing and everything to do with stepping up into freedom in regard to this world’s values.

SO WHAT DOES THE NEW TESTAMENT ACTUALLY TEACH ON GIVING?

One of the main principles of the NT is that we have moved into a new life in which we are no longer directed by a system of rules and regulations (or percentages) but by the inner voice of the Holy Spirit, God Himself indwelling the believer and directing his ways. This is the promise of Ezekiel 36:26 –

“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.  And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.

Those laws, according to Jesus, were now simply defined as ‘loving God with all your heart and loving your neighbour as yourself.’ And the new way that we would do this was by the power of his indwelling Spirit, not by following a set of rules or techniques. We would do it by living as He lived, listening and obeying.

It was into this new lifestyle that the early church was baptised at Pentecost as the Holy Spirit fell upon the individual believers and the church as a whole. His presence changed the way they operated in every aspect of their lives, including giving.

Consequently the book of Acts does not give us a picture of a new community that now repents of their slack attitudes to the tithe and tithes more conscientiously, but one that goes beyond tithing and is typified by a whole new outlook and abandon in regard to earthly possessions.

New Testament giving is typified by a quality of giving that is outside the natural. For instance

• the widow with her mite who ‘out of her poverty put in all she had’ (Luke 21:1)
• the believers in Acts sharing ‘everything they had’ even houses and land (Acts 4:32)
• the Macedonians giving ‘out of … their extreme poverty … beyond their ability’. (1 Cor 8:2)

If we are tied to a percentage this can sound frightening. However, if we are tied to the Spirit this can sound like getting a life worth living!

TO SUM UP

There is more that I’d like to tackle but for now let me finish with a summing up of the apostle Paul’s teaching on giving found in 2 Corinthians chapters 8 & 9. Here are his basic points.

1. Everything belongs to the Lord and has been entrusted to us.
2. We are to excel in the grace of giving as with every other grace.
3. We are free and responsible to determine for ourselves the level of our giving (also 1Cor 16:2)
4. Our giving should however take into account the following guidelines
   1. We are to give first to the Lord, the firstfruit of our increase.
   2. We are to be liberal, sacrificial and generous in all our giving with an understanding that he who gives abundantly reaps abundantly.
   3. We are to be systematic and regular. (1Cor 16:2)
   4. We are to give from a joyful heart.
   5. Our giving is to be a considered and thoughtful offering, taking into account our income. (also 1Cor 16:2)
   6. But it should also be by faith and take into account God’s ability and His desire to meet all our needs.
   7. We are to honour and bless those who are over us and who live by the gospel (1Tim 5:17)

Phew! That’s enough for now. I think I’ll take a break – but I will follow soon with PART II in which I’ll try to tackle some of the following questions.

• Is it okay to tithe as a considered part of my giving?
• What about the great testimonies that follow tithing?
• How can my ‘offerings’ be blessed if the ‘tithe’ is not first in place.
• What about Hebrews 7?
• What about Malachi?
• Where is my ‘storehouse’?
• How should ministry be supported?
• Why are some churches afraid to question the tithe?

Phillip Walters www.backyardbelievers.com

This a helpful parable from Robert Fitts about the role of leaders in the local church.

In every car there are two motors – one runs on gasoline and the other on electricity. The gasoline motor is huge in comparison to the electric motor; but it is the tiny little electric motor that is designed to start the gasoline motor, and the gasoline motor is designed to provide the power to move the car. As soon as the big motor engages, the little motor disengages. If it did not, it would burn out in a matter of minutes.

The apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, and teacher are servants to the Body of Christ to act as initiators (starters) to get the body functioning. Just as the starter motor disengages as soon as the big motor starts, so it is with the wise leader. If he stays engaged he will burn out, just as a starter motor would do if it did not disengage after starting the big motor.

As long as the little starter motor is trying to move the car by the power of a single battery, the car will never function as it was designed to function. It is only the 350 horsepower motor that was designed to move the car, and it is only the Body of Christ that has been designed to build up the Body unto the measure of the fulness of Christ. Only as the Body of Christ is released to minister to itself will it ever attain unto the fullness of the maturity in Christ.

Robert Fitts – The Church in the House (a Return to Simplicity) www.robertfitts.com

This is an excerpt from Lance Ford. Sadly Sunday Morning ‘church’ seems to be the highlight of many a Christian’s spiritual experience. I can’t imagine that Jesus intended this to be so. That the best expression of our faith should happen inside a religious building?  I’m not sure that the average Australian is remotely interested in Sunday Morning Church no matter how we jazz it up. But many Christians love a slick, well oiled Sunday event – and would be offended by me describing it as such.

A couple of nights ago I was channel flipping and caught a talk being given at a church planter’s conference. First of all, I was surprised to see a church planting conference being shown on TV. I was soon cringing though as the (well known) speaker said, “The first priority you have is to present a great Sunday morning service.” The camera quickly scanned the audience, as a sea of goateed future planters scribbled down this “critical” learning point.

I literally yelled at the television, “No!” This is one of the biggest problems we have with attractional churches today. Pastors and church staffs are obsessed with Sunday mornings. The vast majority of time, resources, and energy go into creating and sustaining Sunday mornings. Jesus’ commission to make disciples gets the leftovers.

Lance Ford   shapevine@christianitytoday.com

Thoughts on the Supremacy of God in a Pluralistic World

I love John Piper’s writings and I found a lot of wisdom in this article in the light of pondering the future and the battles that lie ahead.

Our church exists “to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ.” That is our mission. “All things” means business, industry, education, media, sports, arts, leisure, government, and all the details of our lives. Ideally this means God should be recognized and trusted as supreme by every person he has made. But the Bible teaches plainly that there will never be a time before Jesus comes back when all people will honor him as supreme (2 Thessalonians 1:6-10).

So how do we express a passion for God’s supremacy in a pluralistic world where most people do not recognize God as an important part of their lives, let alone an important part of government or education or business or industry or art or recreation or entertainment?

Answer: We express a passion for the supremacy of God…

1) by maintaining a conviction at all times that God is ever-present and gives all things their most important meaning. He is the Creator, Sustainer, and Governor of all things. We must keep in our minds the truth that all things exist to reveal something of God’s infinite perfections. The full meaning of everything, from shoestrings to space shuttles, is the way they relate to God.

2) by trusting God in every circumstance to use his creative, sustaining, governing wisdom and power to work all things together for the good of all who love him. This is faith in the future grace of all that God promises to be for us in Jesus.

3) by making life choices that reveal the supreme worth of God above what the world values supremely. “The steadfast love of the Lord is better than life” (Psalm 63:3). So we will choose to die rather than lose sweet fellowship with God. This will show his supremacy over all that life offers.

4) by speaking to people of God’s supreme worth in creative and persuasive ways, and by telling people how they can be reconciled to God through Christ, so that they can enjoy God’s supremacy as protection and help, rather than fear it as judgment.

5) by making clear that God himself is the foundation for our commitment to a pluralistic democratic order—not because pluralism is his ultimate ideal, but because in a fallen world, legal coercion will not produce the kingdom of God. Christians agree to make room for non-Christian faiths (including naturalistic, materialistic faiths), not because commitment to God’s supremacy is unimportant, but because it must be voluntary, or it is worthless. We have a God-centered ground for making room for atheism. “If my kingship were of this world, my servants would fight” (John 18:36). The fact that God establishes his kingdom through the supernatural miracle of faith, not firearms, means that Christians in this age will not endorse coercive governments—Christian or secular.

This is why we resist the coercive secularization implied in some laws that repress Christian activity in public places. It is not that we want to establish Christianity as the law of the land. That is intrinsically impossible, because of the spiritual nature of the kingdom. It is rather because repression of free exercise of religion and persuasion is as wrong against Christians as it is against secularists. We believe this tolerance is rooted in the very nature of the gospel of Christ. In one sense, tolerance is pragmatic: freedom and democracy seem to be the best political order humans have conceived. But for Christians it is not purelypragmatic: the spiritual, relational nature of God’s kingdom is the ground of our endorsement of pluralism, until Christ comes with rights and authority that we do not have.

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Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: By John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org

Goodbye Pastor Phil, hello Pastor One-Another (some more thoughts on the function of the pastor)

Considering the prominent place of the Pastor in the makeup of the modern local church scene (though dating back to Constantine), it is surprising how little the New Testament has to say about such an individual. Practically nothing. The word ‘pastor’ is used once and it is in fact almost impossible to find a clear reference in the New Testament to a local church led by one man.

Mind you, it is also hard to find a local church that looks anything like what we’ve come to know as a local church today – a distinctively named assembly (such as Keppel Coast Christian Fellowship) with its own vision, building and man in charge.

Rather what we find are churches that embrace the whole city, with no separately owned ‘church’ buildings and a plural eldership belonging to all.

And a style of pastoring that did not seem to centre around any special individual but was spead out between ‘one-another’.

Not that the early church lacked leaders but there is very little exhortation in any of the epistles for believers go seek out a leader for advise, counselling, healing or encouragement. Rather the exhortation is to practise this stuff on ‘one-another’. Over 60 times this (or a similar) expression is used in the apostolic letters.

Here is an example of the ‘one-anothers’.

• live in harmony with one another (Rom. 12:16; 1 Peter 3:8)
• care for one another (1 Cor. 12:25)
• serve one another (Gal. 5:13)
• bear one another’s burdens (Gal. 6:2)
• speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs (Eph. 5:19)
• submit to one another (Eph. 5:21)
• forgive one another (Col. 3:13)
• teach one another (Col. 3:16)
• wash one another’s feet. (John 13:14)
• love one another. (John 13:34)
• be devoted to one another … Honor one another (Romans 12:10)
• stop passing judgment on one another. (Romans 14:13)
• instruct one another (Romans 15:14)
• agree with one another (1 Corinthians 1:10)
• be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other (Ephesians 4:32)
• teach and admonish one another  Colossians 3:16)
• encourage one another and build each other up (1 Thessalonians 5:11)
• encourage one another daily, (Hebrews 3:13)
• consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. (Hebrews 10:24)
• confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed (James 5:16)
• offer hospitality to one another (1 Peter 4:9)
• clothe yourselves with humility toward one another (1 Peter 5:5)
• have fellowship with one another  (1 John 1:7)

Note that the apostles felt that the saints were quite competent to teach and instruct each other, correct each other, hear each other’s confessions, pray for their healing,  encourage each other, build each other up etc etc. They were well equipped to pastor one another.

John, in facts, encouraged them to believe that each of them had ‘an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth.’ (1 John 2:20) If this is so and such a hidden and under-used anointing exists in the body of Christ then the task of the ‘fivefold ministries’ is surely to encourage its release.

Considering the huge burn-out rate that exists is in traditional pastoral ministry perhaps those in ministry would do a great service, both to themselves and to the local body they serve, by

1. encouraging people to believe that they don’t need ‘the Pastor’  as much as they think they do
2. foster the kind of intimate ekklessia where people can actively practise the ‘one-anothers’.
3. actively step back from ‘doing the stuff’ themselves and let the Holy Spirit bring out the aforesaid anointing among the saints.

I suspect that the result of this would be to release  leaders to spend more time seeking each other out , seeking the Lord together and exploring ways to advance the Kingdom within the city (Acts13).

In order for that to happen perhaps the great need of the local church is not another Pastor Some-One but the release of Pastor One-Another.